The Clockmaker by Jane A. Adams

Author:Jane A. Adams [Jane A. Adams]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2019-04-07T16:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

The funeral itself passed without incident. The police had been there, of course, as observers, but they had not interfered; as far as Abraham could see, they hadn’t really spoken to anyone.

The conversation he’d had with his brother had troubled him a great deal and he’d come to question things that until this last couple of days had not bothered him at all. His brother’s business was successful: a general store and a small chain of jewellery shops, two of them in the East End. But one was out in Croydon, not far from the burgeoning airport, staffed by a married daughter and her husband, and catering for a very mixed trade, whereas those in the traditional areas of Whitechapel and Limehouse largely catered to the Jewish community. These shops were not high-end, mostly serving the middling classes, but they were turning over a good deal of business. Anything to do with clocks or watches or requiring engraving was often passed Abraham’s way, as was any repair work or the sourcing of something particularly unusual. Abraham was well aware that his little shop would probably not have survived without this patronage, and until now he had not really given it much thought. He was happy that his brother’s business was a success; he was happy that his brother’s family were growing wealthy and had twice moved house in the last five years, moving a little further out of the East End each time. The children were making good marriages and seemed content, and the grandchildren were coming along. All seemed well with the world.

Abraham saw his brother perhaps once a month, but there was nothing unusual in that. They cared about one another as family should but they were not close and had little in common, even in terms of politics. They did not even attend the same synagogue. Benjamin’s wife preferred one closer to their new home, where she could mix with what she told Abraham was ‘a better crowd’, and Abraham understood that for business people there was a need to see and be seen, and to look prosperous because that inspired trust in prospective customers. He understood all of that and had tried to make allowances for the fact that their plans more often than not excluded him.

Abraham’s refusal to remarry had set the cat among the pigeons, too. His brother told him that it made him socially difficult to deal with, because a lone man coming to any kind of event upset the numbers.

Abraham understood what he meant: the human race was expected to appear two by two and singletons made people feel uncomfortable. From Abraham’s perspective, this was never a particular issue, but that was largely because he rarely attended the social events that his brother had organized and it occurred to him only now that the impact of that was that they had drifted very far apart.

Abraham was close to Joseph because it was Joseph who undertook to deliver or collect the clocks or

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